Prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered his defense minister Shaul Mofaz not to
allow Israeli troops to fire a single shot in the face of the April 9-10 Palestinian
mortar and missile barrage against Gush Katif. This is reported by DEBKAfile’s
military and Washington sources. Sharon was intent on showing US President George
W. Bush when he met him Monday, April 11, that while Israel was exercising exemplary
restraint, the Palestinians were bent on aggression. Picking up fast on their
chance to operate with impunity, the Palestinians redoubled their attacks. In
broad daylight and heedless of Israeli aerial surveillance, the Qassam missile
and mortar crews positioned their launchers and kept on shooting at Israeli
civilian and military locations in the southern Gaza Strip.

While the current round caused damage and distress but no injuries, the next
round, say Israeli field commanders, will be a lot more ferocious and precise.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, all the Palestinian organizations
are behind the mortar-missile onslaught together, including Mahmoud Abbas’
own Fatah. For the first time, the Gaza Strip groups are in close sync with
fraternal groups on the West Bank. Four Fatah units, for instance, operated
in the Gaza Strip front while a fifth went into action in the West Bank town
of Bethlehem. Sunday night, as mortar fire resounded in the Gaza Strip, this
Fatah unit which is called after Masoud Ayad hurled a pipe bomb at Israeli troops
guarding Rachel’s Tomb. No one was hurt. Our intelligence sources identify
this unit as linked closely to the Lebanese Hizballah.

That same night, Mofaz conducted a conversation described as tough with Palestinian
Authority chairman Abu Mazen demanding that he urgently consign security forces
to the Gaza Strip to halt the terror offensive. Mofaz was only going through
the motions. He knew that Abbas was quietly encouraging the attackers and in
fact had instructed Palestinian television channels to back them up.

This won him no points with any of the Palestinian organizations. They lined
up Sunday in a solid front against Sharon’s Gaza evacuation plan which
Abbas had endorsed when he shook Sharon’s hand on a truce at Sharm al-Sheikh
in February. Calling the pull-out plan a fraudulent ruse to transform the Gaza
Strip into a large, isolated prison, they vowed to resist its implementation
by every means.

Our sources point out that this is the first time a wall-to-wall Palestinian
front has openly avowed its intention of resuming its war of terror against
Israel, starting with offensive steps to sabotage the evacuation of Jewish settlements
from the Gaza Strip.